Economy: Quantitative Easing

Lord Eatwell Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

No, my Lords, I certainly will not. It has actually led to inflation already. In the estimates made by the Bank of England in the third quarter bulletin in September last year, it was estimated that quantitative easing had raised UK inflation by around 0.75 to 1.5 per cent. I firmly believe that the greater benefit of raising real GDP by around 1.5 to 2 per cent was what really mattered in the economic circumstances in which we find ourselves. Then the question is what happens to the unwinding of QE? The stock will be held and sold back into the market in due course.

[Lord Eatwell]

My Lords, the noble Lord’s reference to growth of GDP is rather odd, since that is no responsibility of the Monetary Policy Committee. Its responsibility is for inflation and, as he said, it added to inflation last year which, as noble Lords will remember, was already at 5 per cent. How does the noble Lord judge the success of QE and how is it to be balanced against the decimation of the annuities of hundreds of thousands of pensioners as a result?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, first it continues to be the judgment of the MPC that if it had not acted on this operation under the asset purchase facility inflation would undershoot the 2 per cent target in the medium term. I remind this House that inflation has already come down from 5.2 per cent on a CPI measure last September to 3.6 per cent in January and is expected by the Bank, and most other commentators, to fall very considerably during this year. The success of QE will be measured on the performance of inflation.

As to the question of savers and pensions, as the deputy governor, Charlie Bean, said on 21 February:

“While annuity rates have fallen, that is only part of the story. Those pension funds will typically have been invested in a mix of bonds and equities, with perhaps a bit of cash too. The rise in asset prices as a result of quantitative easing consequently also raises the value of the pension pot, providing an offset to the fall in annuity rates”.